The flat payouts are what are driving the issues you describe. It's a 12 point jump for every person you outlast. It's more important to survive through the next guy than it is to get involved and try to build an early stack which would give you a better chance to get to 1st/2nd.
It would be nice if rank payouts were more like chip payouts, where 4th thru 6th is the same thing, and first is more heavily weighted. Average out the negative impact to rank and give the same to all 4th thru 6th and give 1st a bigger payout relative to 2nd/3rd. In real money poker a better player wins more in the long run not by avoiding 5th/6th but by maximizing 1st/2nd. Strategic risks that increase your odds of winning also often increase your odds of going out early. Being more aggressive and taking more risks to get yourself into position to get to the top 2 is a good approach when payouts are heavily top loaded. This would create a bubble to get to 3rd but it would reduce the extreme cautiousness on hand 1, instead encouraging you to get yourself into position to comfortably survive into the top 3, since there's no additional penalty for 6th over 4th.

I'm a fan of the changes. I will still say as one of the diamond players that reaches diamond and then stops, my primary reason for doing so doesn't feel fully addressed with this, which is putting $1M of my reward at risk for the reward drop from diamond to platinum. Presumably this could happen with one bad run of cards on the last day of the season, even if you've spent 3 weeks at diamond; sounds like that's still in play. I'll refrain from my full rant on this topic as it's been discussed before, but I'm not sure the tiered buy-ins will be enough to entice this guy to continue playing ranked and putting that $1M at risk once it's guaranteed by not playing.
I'll be curious to see what the tiered buy-in amounts are...if they're high enough that I feel like I can make as much or more in the meantime just on tournament rewards AND unranked tournaments continue to be a non-factor leaving ranked as the only realistic way to find tournaments (not that this is a great feature pushing people towards continuing to play ranked but technically it would work on those of us who just prefer the tournament format), I may be enticed to continue.
I'll wrap it up by saying I love the game, I'll continue to play the game regardless, keep up the excellent work on it. I'll just be in ring games if tournaments are not an option

Looking forward to the changes as well. Until then definitely just re-load occasionally to make sure the game starts up while still in searching for ideal mode. Takes longer to find a game, but you'll have similarly ranked competition. I'm one of those diamonds who hit my rank and stops Hoping they provide some incentive to continue or at least a safety net of some sort for locking down rewards. There's none right now....$1.5M reward for finishing diamond, $500k for platinum. Risk catching a bad streak of cards to drop $1M? No thx.

Slow rolling - taking forever to call to close the action when you have the nuts. If you're doing it earlier in the hand you're trying to plant a seed of doubt in the opponents head...make them think you're giving it a ton of thought because you're not sure if you're ahead or behind, when you know damn well you're ahead. That's a strategy to get your opponent to bet/call more which is the whole point of the game - win as much as possible. At the river though, or even earlier once your opponent has gone all in, there's no additional money to extract from your opponent...there's no strategy there....you should call quickly with an unbeatable hand.
As a nod to the other definition of slowroll you should toss your cards down face up together. The old "i have two pair....jacks.....and jacks" to show your quad jacks is actually a hugely dickheaded move at best; at worst it might actually constitute a violation with some sort of penalty up to & including loss of the hand by verbally miscalling your hand.

It's just running bad. It sucks and it does seem to come in waves.
If I had to nitpick the AA play - perhaps the raise wasn't enough pre-flop and you should charge more to see the flop? That might be too results oriented, but I think it depends on stack sizes..you said you were the short stack with 4 remaining....at 1500 blinds you couldn't have had a ton of BB remaining in your stack so a shove couldn't be too ridiculous. Just shoving all-in may have priced at least one of them out. Even if you had just won the blinds that's better than going against 2 players where your aces are very vulnerable. Bear in mind as the short stack you're going to get more calls as people are trying to knock you out..you've got a target on your head and teaming up against you is one of the best ways to do this (implied collusion - it's 100% fine, look it up if not familiar), so you probably want to use every bit of fold-inducing power you have to make sure it's 1 at most.
A deeper stacked situation or a ring game would be a completely different discussion, you could presumably get away from it or at least minimize the damage, and I don't know the stack sizes exactly here, but with blinds at 1500 in a tournament you're not sitting on hugely deep stacks..I think your only other move is to shove all in and presumably avoid 2 callers. Once one person calls the other person (especially the big blind) will have a great price to call and if they're looking to get you knocked out that's more than enough of an excuse to see a flop.
I say all that to say I get it...the problem isn't that J-7 sucked out on you, it's that it seems to happen again and again and again. It'll all even out...just take a break and go back with a fresh mindset; it will turn around but if you try to force it while frustrated you will make bad decisions.

DaWiz definitely check out some youtube videos about playing pre-flop. While generally in PP I have a significantly tightened pre-flop raising range, ring games especially, one of the exceptions is definitely ranked tourneys...especially later as the blinds get higher and the stack to blinds ratio gets smaller. These situations play a lot closer to real $$ poker especially at higher ranks so traditional pre-flop raising & continuation bet strategies are more effective than they are in often bingo-heavy ring games where patiently waiting to catch your hand and cashing in on people who call too liberally is a better strategy.
In your videos you had 3 separate hands with preflop calls with AK, AQ, AJ. You've got ~10BB in each situation. I've gotta think these should be all-in's. Maybe if you're trying to outlast a short stack to guarantee 3rd there's an argument for a min-raise and then if the big stack pushes back get out of the way, but calling lets all sorts of garbage hands in the pot that can destroy your premium hand advantage in a flash and completely removes your possibility of taking down the pot right then & there. In these exact situations you would have run into some trouble because of the quality of hands in the blinds behind you, but that's the only reason they're interesting enough to be videos I suppose...when you've got AJ on the button with 2 unknown hands behind, the odds that you are ahead or significantly ahead are very very high. Don't let them catch up and don't be too afraid of the remote chance they have a premium hand like KK as seen in your video...again, you can min raise and get away if the guy who can knock you out decides to fight back if you really want to hedge against that, but don't just call.

I definitely feel your pain. I just thankfully snuck into diamond yesterday, I didn't think it was going to happen this season. 2 weeks ago a guy hits a 2-outer on me on the river which would have put me over 1300. The pain just kept rolling from there to the point where I was down to the 1220's. Thankfully it did turn back around, and ironically in the final game it was a couple key card catches from behind that got me the win. Maybe it was just the universe course-correcting after a particularly painful stretch. I can't really think back and hate many of my decisions during that stretch, just not holding up when I'm ahead and never catching my card when I'm behind. A 60% edge feels like being a 20% dog sometimes.
Ranked games come down to winning that key race or two. I feel like I have an edge on the field when it comes to the shove/call strategy with 4 or less players remaining and high blinds simplifying the decisions, but no one hand is ever that far ahead and in this game and it can be VERY swingy...the downswings are tough to swallow sometimes. People definitely call too light and continue to try to limp into pots with marginal hands way too deep into tournaments, which is overall good as someone who knows better, I get it in ahead way more often than behind, and while there are more ups than downs there are no shortage of downs. Just have to soldier on and keep making good decisions.
The one part of my strategy I continue to wonder about is that I don't fear 4th place. 5th & 6th are pretty harmful from a rank perspective but once you hit 4th there's not a lot to lose and I am not afraid to take a smaller edge and risk 4th to increase my chance at 1st. It's interesting as compared to 6 handed real $$ sit n go's where there is literally no difference between 6th & 3rd (all $ in 1st/2nd typically).

I think you played that perfectly. I just don't think you're ever not losing your stack in that situation. Getting all the chips in with 2-5 and 2/5/5 anywhere on the board is definitely a profitable venture in this game. Chalk it up to a cooler, tip your cap, and move on planning to do the same thing next time. Sure you can find some youtube videos of pro's at the world series finding folds or playing that hand more cautiously, but (A) they're pros, (B) this is free poker and people will call with a lot less than a bigger boat. I've got to think you're going to leave more money behind than you save if you suddenly start getting afraid of pocket 4's in that situation...do the same thing next time.

Congrats! It can be quite the grind. I have found once you've hit diamond your starting point next season will be better..a good showing in placements will probably put you straight into platinum or just under.

Glad you're catching onto the joys of poker. I'm sure any Dev would be thrilled that you've gotten into it because of the game just being a guy with a PS4. I used to play a lot of real $$ online poker back when it was allowed in the US. Kind of been out of it ever since, and largely turned off nonsensical play on phone apps. The poker quality is much higher on prominence than any of those games, AND unlike the couple other attempts at console poker I've seen, there are actual players to play with. Don't get me wrong, if people have fun throwing their chips all in every hand and hoping their cards win, I hold nothing against them, but that's not a game I find fun so I won't be around long. The success & downfall of this game will be with the size of the player base. My worry is the temptation of selling chips for cheaper or even just giving free chips at a higher pace may attract more people to play, but it will kill the quality of poker they've managed to achieve, which to me is unmatched in free poker. Keeping value in the chips by making them more difficult to come by is the #1 element. Closely second is the fact that they keep it 6-handed...the less people at the table, the less inclined people are to try to play bingo.

As for not winning, it's poker...we try to make decisions that are profitable long-term, where if we make the same decision 1,000 times we will make more than we lose. That can mean a 55%-45% edge where nearly half the time we lose....450 times over the span of 1,000 hands. The question isn't winning or losing it's do we win often enough making that same decision, given the risk & reward, to make money doing the same thing 1,000 times. Sometimes the cost & return ratio only means we need to win 20% of the time for it to be a smart move...if we assess that we'll actually win 25% of the time, it's a good move, and we will still lose 750 out of 1,000 times. Would you pay $20 to win $100 one out of every 4 times? Of course..you'd do it a million times if you could. Same concept. The tough part is figuring out those percentages.

Sorry for the long post, I like talking hands....just my thoughts on your two hands posted...I'm not an expert by any stretch but I do know a little...and these are both very straight forward situations where I feel like I'm probably close to spot on here...
First hand is never a fold; I like the shove. You've got so many outs that the only hands you're even behind a little bit are sets, Aces & Kings, and AQ of clubs specifically. I just ran the numbers, you're worst against the AQ of clubs 30-70 because your flush is worthless, after that against top set QQ you're down 40-60. Against Aces (with the Ace of clubs) you're 45-55...without the ace of clubs it's almost 50/50. You're way ahead of all single pairs except AQ clubs specifically (for comparison you're ahead 60-40 to any other AQ). I think it's a crime against humanity in Prominence Poker to narrow anyone's possible holdings specifically to this list of cards that are even slightly ahead of you in this situation, and even in the remote chance they do have one of those, you're still not that far behind. By shoving your also have the possibility of just taking down the $2k bet plus the existing pot with King high. That's never horrible.
It would take more of a poker expert to break down all the pro's & con's of shoving vs calling and playing the turn/river here, how different reads on different player types would change that, but that would probably be overthinking it....simply put you've got a zillion outs against virtually all hands....I've got to think shove is more than fine and probably the decidedly correct play against just about anyone. The fact that he called with the 8 is just prominence poker for ya...horrible horrible call for his tournament life this early in the tournament...he caught that 8 and was never going to let it go. BAAAAD.
If he'd shoved all-in instead of betting $2k that would have been a much better play than calling yours. Not that doing that would have been good, but certainly better than the call. The list of hands & situations you should shove all-in is VERY different from the list of hands you should call with....which leads me to...
The second hand is just not a good call. If your positions are reversed where you were acting first I think it's maybe an OK all-in because everyone could fold and you win the blinds, but never a call with 10 bb for your tournament life. You or the opponent would have to be nearly out of chips with the blinds creating better pot odds to consider calling here. What are you hoping they have? You're getting 1.4:1 pot odds on your call having to put in 5.7 to win 7.4; meaning you have to win 42% of the time to break even. Of all the possible hands they could have are you 42% to win or better in more than half of them?
Flat out the answer is no. You're way behind a lot, and borderline on some. Examples of too far behind: pairs 77 thru AA, overcards JQ thru AK. Examples of borderline (you're still mostly under 50% but 42% or better): small pairs 22 thru 66, 2 card combos one over/one under: A2 thru A5. There's not much else they're likely to shove all in with that you're even borderline with, and almost nothing that you're blatantly ahead of that they're likely to do this with. Are you going to consider 2-7 offsuit a possible hand they might be holding? Nah...have to rule all that nonsense out, but those are the only hands you'd want to go up against for it all.
Hold off on this call to when you're in a bit more of a desperate situation.
People seem to overvalue suited connected hands a bit...7-9 hearts is a great hand for a multiple player pot because when you hit your straights/flushes you can win huge pots and there's lots of people around to potentially give you action. It's also very easy to tell when you missed and you're behind and you can just get out of it without taking any damage. 1v1 the flushes & straights don't change the odds all that much, it's basically just 9 high, and there's obviously no "easy to get away from" advantage either. People play these really aggressively sometimes, and sure you do win sometimes, in this game it's very rare that any one hand is really THAT far behind another...but it's just a hand playing from behind until it's caught a piece of the board, making it bad pre-flop. Again, different stack sizes or blind sizes change the pot odds and can change this.

Expect to lose is a strong phrase but I know what you mean and I'm in the same ballpark. I just had to rant about the particularly extreme sequence of suckouts I experienced. Spread those out over the course of a lazy Saturday where I log some serious hours and I wouldn't think twice, but back to back to back was something special.
I find formulating a strategy in this game very interesting. It's tough, and it's probably bad for my poker game, but I can't play online for real $ here in the states so F it, it's still fun. Overall I've been quite successful but sometimes the things you get to be witness to with the crazy play that happens in free poker are worth noting. To your point though, it has to roll off your back.

Not sure I get the "advantage for low level players" part, unless your theory is that the game is adjusting the quality of cards for lower level players? It's been discussed a million times over, it's not realistic in my eyes, but if that's what you're locked into then I'll just say agree to disagree...I'm just tired of that silly argument.
As for pay to win I also disagree. $100 for $3.5M? That's not a lot of chips for the $$. I ran the original PS Plus bonus from whatever it was, a couple hundred thousand, up to $8M and I'm not a great player; it's just not that hard to capitalize on the really bad players. I applaud the devs for making chips expensive though..it's a relatively low ratio of what you get for your $$ as compared to how difficult it would be to just earn it in-game. As opposed to $10 buying you $100M in chips like most phone apps. That would flood the game with chips and destroy the poker-quality they've been relatively successful at achieving. It's still free video game poker so there's always going to be that bingo element occasionally, but in my experience it's not that hard to find good games at higher stakes. This game does as good a job as any other I've seen at people playing somewhat thoughtful poker even though it's free. This game is the least "pay to win" poker game I feel like I've seen.